Bad for many is the consolation of fools // Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos
Earlier this year I decided to take on the daunting challenge of getting my Spanish driver’s license. To an American this might sound like a simple task, but any licensed Spaniard can shed light on the fact that it’s much the contrary. To be dramatic, as are accused sevillanos according to the sevillano stereotype, getting my license was harder than any college exam I took. Whether that speaks to the difficulty of the exam or the ease of my college degree is up for debate.
Please see below for a brief breakdown of the exam process and summary of my experience.
Part One: Theory Exam
Despite being a licensed driver in the US for more than half of my life, including 1000s of hours of driving between my 2 hour daily commutes to work and my numerous road trips to and from college (approx. 7 hours each way), Spain doesn’t recognize a US license, no matter how many bureaucratic hoops you are willing to jump through. So, step one of getting your Spanish license involves enrolling in a local “autoescuela” and taking 10 days of classes to learn the ins and outs of driver’s theory. Of course, the 10 days alone won’t prepare you because there are literally 4,000 total possible questions on the exam and you’ll get 30 at random (all in Spanish, remember). From those 30, you can miss 3. Questions range from mechanics of a car to how to shift gears on a motorcycle: completely irrelevant for a majority of the driving population. I spent weeks taking the 150+ practice exams and then day before the actual theory exam I spent the entire day and well into the night taking exam after exam, writing down notes for the particularly challenging and tricky questions. On the day of the exam I woke up 2 hours early to cram some more. It all paid off, the exam results came out 10 hours after taking the exam and I passed with 0 mistakes.
Part Two: Driving Classes + The 30 Minute Driving Exam (driving manual, mind you!)
After the stress of the theory exam, I remember thinking to myself, no way will I be that nervous for the driving exam. I know how to drive! It will be a breeze.
Then I took my first driving class (you have to take 3 minimum). My instructor, El Dani, quickly assessed my abilities and informed me that I didn’t know how to drive as well as I thought. To be fair, driving here requires driving a manual car, and while I do know how to drive manual I was never professionally taught manually. So unbeknownst to me I had developed a few bad habits. The experience of my driving classes ended up being fruitful, I felt like I learned from El Dani. That being said, he also knocked my confidence by calling out every single little mistake I made at every turn (no pun intended). So come exam day, I was more nervous than I had been for the theory exam. So nervous that I drove through a stop sign and automatically failed within the first 5 minutes. The highlight? On the drive back to the DMV after failing, the driving examiner asks me “How does driving here compare to driving in the US?”
“It’s definitely harder here,” I say “the signs are a lot more complicated for example.”
“Ah, yes, but the stop sign is universal” he replies.
I refrained from any sassy comments. He was right after all.
When I arrived home I called my dear friend Rodrigo. I lamented my automatic fail and we laughed at how I, a seemingly experienced driver, drove through a stop sign.
Rodrigo says, “Don’t worry, I also failed my test the first time… ‘mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos’ (when a lot of people experience a bad thing, it makes the fool feel better)”
I’d never heard the expression before, and because Rodrigo speaks a mile a minute he had to repeat it 3 times and then explain. He explained how it was a common saying in Spanish to refer to when something bad happens to you and someone else says oh well that happened to me too, it’s like ok, that makes you feel less bad. But the literal translation would be “something bad for a lot of people makes a fool feel better”.
“So I’m the fool, Rodrigo?” and we both laughed.
One month later I took the second exam and passed. I’m a licensed Spanish driver and one Spanish saying wiser.